HOME: Boov Pop! review

HOME: Boov Pop! is the official game of DreamWorks Animation’s 3D comedy adventure HOME. It’s a Match-3 puzzler that is available exclusively for iOS.

Competition is fierce when it comes to Match-3 puzzlers and standing out against the popular titles like Candy Crush Saga and Bejeweled is tough. For HOME: Boov Pop! the developers have had a good try at coming up with new gimmicks.

The aim of the game is to match three or more coloured bubbles. In HOME: Boov Pop! this is done by swiping your finger across adjacent bubbles of the same colour. Once you run out of bubbles to link they pop.

Instead of dropping new bubbles in from the top of the screen, like other games in the genre, new bubbles float up from the bottom of the screen. A neat touch is that they are controlled by physics so bounce off each other as they settle into place. This makes it much harder to plan ahead as causing big chain reactions will jumble them up.

The more bubbles you pop in one go the bigger your score will be. More than three bubbles at a time also results in special bubbles that can clear whole lines once popped.

The levels are set out on a Candy Crush Saga style journey. Each level has a set number of moves and there are prerequisite scores to meet in order to obtain the three stars on offer.

As you progress things get trickier such as obstacles in the playing field that force the bubbles to scatter differently. There are also special multi-coloured bubbles that can help you by allowing you to link together chains of different colours.

At the side of the screen sits one of the characters from the movie. You start out with the alien Oh but eventually unlock others such as Tip and Captain Smek. Characters come with a special ability to help you. For example Oh can blast all bubbles of the same colour from the screen.

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The game is actually rather fun but it’s let down by the usual trappings that affect free-to-play titles. There’s an energy system in place that you need to wait to recharge if you run out of attempts. Also as levels become more difficult it starts to feel like you might need to rely on in-app purchases to buy special helper items.

If you’re a fan of the movie or enjoy Match-3 puzzlers then HOME: Boov Pop! is a worth a look.
HOME: Boov Pop! can be downloaded via the iTunes App Store for free.